Snared (29 page)

Chapter Eighty-Nine

H
ungry, Mummy!” Bella bounced in the back, her car seat rattling. “My wee tummy’s empty!”

Vicky turned to grin at her daughter. “Come on, let’s get you round to Granny’s.”

She pulled off and turned right onto Barry Road, drove down the long straight against the flow of traffic, listening to Bella
singing
. She wound through the corner bend then drove up past her first police station, now closed to the public. Bella stopped singing.

As she turned into Bruce Drive, Bella punched the door beside her. “Where’s my daddy?”

Vicky turned around to see another tantrum forming, Bella’s face twisted, her eyes narrow slits. “What do you mean, Bella?”

“I want my daddy!”

Vicky turned left towards her parents’ house then sped on down the street, angling her rearview to keep an eye on her. “Bella, you don’t have a daddy. It’s just you, me and Tinkle. And Granny and Grandad.”

“I want my daddy!” Bella punched her fist against the door again. “I want my daddy!”

Vicky parked outside her old house. She got out and pulled Bella out of the car, hugging her tight, and kissed her forehead. “It’s okay, baby.”

“Why do I not have a daddy?”

“You’re a special girl, Bells.”

“Catriona said everyone has a daddy.”

Vicky pulled her tighter. “Well, Bella, you don’t have a daddy, okay? You’re a very special girl, Bells. Bells and whistles.
Remember
?”

“Why don’t I have a daddy?”

“You just don’t. Not everyone has to have a daddy.” Vicky stood there for a few seconds, smelling Bella’s clean hair. “Shall we get Granny to fill up your wee tummy?”

“Okay.”

Vicky walked up the drive and knocked on the front door.

Mum came out in her dressing gown, milky eyes squinting into the light. “Is that you, Victoria?”

“Sorry, Mum. I need to get in to work early.”

Mum shook her head as she laughed. “Just like your father . . .” She helped Bella up the steps. “How’s my wee girl?”

“My wee tummy’s empty, Granny.”

“Well go inside, Bella. Grandad’s just making some porridge.”

“Yay!” Bella skipped past her into the dark house.

Vicky let out a breath. “I’m giving you a tantrum warning today.”

“Is it her daddy again?”

“It is.”

Mum shrugged. “You’ve made your bed, Victoria. I’ll follow the party line but you know how I feel about it.”

Vicky bit her lip. “Can Bella stay here tonight?”

“What’s the occasion?”

“I’ve got a date.”

“Same man as last night?”

“Yes.”

“Of course she can stay.” Mum looked to the heavens, her eyes losing their milkiness. “Thank God.”

“Mum, I’m not even sure God can help sort out my love life.”

Chapter Ninety

V
icky pulled into the car park at the Fixit DIY store. She parked by a police car just by the entrance — its blue lights were still flashing. She sat there, thankful she’d only got through one bottle with Robert. She got out and crossed the car park.

Colin Woods snipped the end of the crime tape as she approached. “This is getting beyond the joke, Vicks.”

“I’m not
that
late. I think I broke most of the speed limits on the way here.”

“No, I meant you and me being at the same crime scene again.”

“Tell me about it.”

Woods frowned as he inspected her. “You look a bit differe
nt t
oday.”

Vicky blushed. “Just tired.” She nodded at the building. “Do you want to get me up to speed?”

“I just came on my shift when we got the call-out.” Woods waved behind the tape. “The store manager was chained to the front of the shop. Some boy at the Asda round the back spotted him. I’ve sent him on his way but I’ll follow up with him later just to make sure there’s no funny business.”

“What about the manager?”

“Poor boy’s naked and it was a cold night. Some doctor from Ninewells is with him.”

“He’s still alive?”

“Of course he is.” Woods laughed. “Christ, Vicks, do you think it’d just be you on your lonesome if there was a body? This place would be swarming with C&A suits if it was a murder.”

“What was he tied up with?”

“The chains that bird gadgie uses. Soutar’s just freeing him now.”

Vicky put a hand on her hip, trying to focus. “Let’s see him.”

A four-by-four pulled up alongside them. Willis Stewart got out and ran towards them, eyes bulging. “Where’s Graeme? Is he okay?”

Woods held him back. “Please, sir, this is a crime scene. I need you to vacate the area.”

“Don’t you know who I am?”

“I don’t, sir. Now, I’m going to need you to calm down.”

Stewart pushed Woods’ arms away. “I’m the Chief Executive of this company!”

Woods raised his eyebrows at Vicky. “What do you think?”

Vicky clenched her fists as she scowled at Stewart. He’d ignored the warning and this is what’d happened. “He needs to stay back here.”

“But —”

Vicky put a finger to her lip. “No buts, Mr Stewart. I’ll be back in two minutes to give you an update. Okay?”

“Very well.”

“Do I need to suit up, Colin?”

“Should be okay, Vicks. It’s been raining since we got here.”

Vicky pushed through the tape to inspect the locus.

PC Soutar was slicing at some chains with a hacksaw, torn Fixit packaging at his feet.

Vicky picked up the bag. “Did you get this from inside?”

Soutar nodded. “Aye, the shop was open. Found the keys by the door.”

Dr Rankine was kneeling beside Graeme Christie, the store manager, who was shaking as he lay there. She got to her feet and nodded at Vicky. “Good morning, Sergeant.”

“What’s good about it?”

“Well, at least you’re not tied up naked.”

“Chance would be a fine thing.”

Rankine smiled before a glance at Christie wiped it from her face. “Poor man’s in a terrible state.”

“How is he?”

“Not good. It was four degrees last night with no cloud cover until the rain started just after six. He’s suffering from mild hypothermia. I need to get him inside once he’s free.”

Vicky snapped her fingers at Rankine. “Come with me.” She jogged over to where Stewart was still hassling Woods. “Will the store office be warm?”

“Should be.” Stewart frowned, eyes still on Woods. “Why?”

“I need to get Mr Christie inside.”

“Why?”

Rankine folded her arms. “To help with his passive external rewarming.”

“What’s that?”

“Do you need to know?”

“Yes. It’s my shop.”

Rankine rolled her eyes. “To help his body generate its own heat. I’ve got some special clothes in my car that’ll help. We need to get him somewhere warm. He might die if we don’t. An ambulance will be too long.”

Stewart nodded. “The office has a heater.” He opened the front door to the shop and entered. “I’ll just get it fired up.”

Vicky glanced at Rankine. “That man will be the death of me.”

“Just make sure he’s not the death of Mr Christie.” Rankine patted Vicky on the arm. “Back in a sec. Can you get him inside?”

“Will do.” Vicky looked back the way they’d come.

Woods and Soutar half-carried Christie over, his shaking arms draped round their shoulders. Christie was naked except for his underpants.

“Follow me.” Vicky led them inside, following the trail of lights triggered by Stewart’s tramp to the far end of the store. She spotted him by a door, putting his keys back in his pocket, and jogged up to meet him.

Stewart thrust out his chest, clearly pleased with himself. “I’ve got the fire on full blast in there.”

“Good.” Vicky led him through the door. The room was tiny, with only four desks, green-screen terminals perched on top.

Woods and Soutar helped Christie through the door. His body was shaking hard, his teeth chattering together. They put him on a seat.

Rankine appeared, clutching a shell suit, and began to help Christie into it.

Vicky looked around for something to do. She shut the door before
wheeling the fire over. “Will I be able to ask him some
questions
?”

Rankine zipped up the front of the jacket and fastened the
Velcro
. “You can. He’s out of the woods now, I think.”

Vicky knelt in front of Christie. “I’m going to need to ask you some questions, okay?”

Christie nodded through his shivering. “Th-th-th-that’s f-f-
f-fine.”

“Mr Christie. What’s the last thing you remember?”

“L-l-l-locking up.”

“What time was this?”

“E-e-eight. J-j-j-just affffffffter.”

“What happened?”

Christie struggled for breath. “H-h-h-hit on head.”

Rankine started rubbing his shoulders through the fabric. She raised her eyebrows.

Vicky ignored her. “Did you see who attacked you?”

“M-m-m-m-m-man.”

“Was he tall?”

Christie nodded.

“What was he wearing?”

“B-b-b-b-b-b-balac-c-c-c-c-clava.”

“Was there anyone else?”

Christie hugged his body tighter as he shook his head.

Vicky exhaled slowly. “Thanks. My colleagues will take a full statement from you later.”

Christie gave a slight nod.

Vicky looked at Rankine. “There’s an ambulance on its way to take you to hospital.” She joined Stewart by the window.

He avoided her gaze. “How’s he doing?”

“He’s not going to die, Mr Stewart.”

“That’s good.”

“That’s
lucky
.”

“I’ve told you bef —”

“Is there active CCTV here?”

Stewart pinched the point of his chin. “There’s a camera round the back. The one at the front is out of action.”

Vicky rubbed her forehead. “Is this public knowledge?”

“Shouldn’t be.”

“You’re very lucky he’s still alive. You know that, right?”

“I’m very lucky my shop hasn’t been raided.” Stewart avoided her look as he held up a letter, his hand shaking. “I just found this.”

Vicky snatched it off him.
“Listen to us. Lose the birds, set them free. Otherwise we’re not responsible for what we do next. You’ve got till lunchtime. You’ve seen what we can do.”
She scowled at Stewart. “I normally hate to say I told you so.”

“Your Assistant Chief Constable told me so as well. I’ve told you before — I refuse to negotiate with these people.”

“You need to get rid of the birds.”

“I refuse to do anything of the sort.”

“This is your fault, Mr Stewart.” Vicky got in his face.

Stewart stared her down. “The birds stay.”

Chapter Ninety-One

F
orrester held the station’s front door open for Vicky. “Raven’s having just the one briefing today — wants to get us all together. He’s worried about what’s happening here.”

Vicky entered through the security door and started off along the corridor. “So why was it just me at the DIY store?”

“I told you, all hell was breaking loose.”

“That sounds like someone forgot to order paperclips.”

“It was bulldog clips, if you must know.” Forrester exhaled. “The Chief Constable was after an update so we had to run around
pulling
it together. I try to keep you away from all that nonsens
e, Vicky.”

“I appreciate it, sir. Was it anything to do with Fergus Duncan calling him?”

“Probably.”

Vicky followed him into the incident room, which was packed with the officers from both teams. She spotted reps from Scenes of Crime and the various forensic analysis teams, including Zoë.

Her mobile chirruped in her bag. She retrieved it and set it to mute. A text from Robert —
Hd nice n8. R
She put it back, deciding texting wasn’t one of Robert’s skills.

Raven went to the whiteboard, which was neater than
Forrester’s
. “Good morning all. I want to thank you for attending so promptly. Format for today is as follows. Keith and DS Laing will give an overview of where we’ve got to with the murder case, before handing over to David and DS Dodds for an update on where they’re at with their cases. Finally, I’ll ask DS MacDonald to update on his work linking the cases together.”

“Cheers, boss.” Greig leaned against the pillar nearest the whiteboard. “This is in no particular order. As ever, stop me if you’ve got any questions. First, the post mortem of Michael Scott has confirmed he died from a heart attack, most likely from the running he’d been doing on his treadmill. Time of death was between nine p.m. and ten p.m. on Tuesday night. Now, this is where it gets
interesting
.”

He picked up a sheet of paper and read from it. “This is from the draft report. ‘The muscle spasms present on the subject’s back indicate the use of a Taser in Drive Stun mode, applied with some force.’ For those of you who don’t know — and I didn’t until twenty minutes ago — that means the Taser is used without the cartridge being present and the electrodes therefore don’t fire. Apparently, it’s just like a cattle prod. What appears to have happened is it was held up to the body and repeatedly sparked. We can therefore deduce that Mr Scott had been running under some duress, to the point where he suffered a coronary.”

MacDonald held up his hand. “So it’s linked to our cases?”

Greig frowned. “Why would that be?”

“Our first case involved a Taser in Drive Stun mode.”

Greig glanced at Raven. “We’ll need to review that.”

“We’ll cover that in Mac’s update, okay?” Raven clapped his hands together. “I was fairly clear in the steer I gave yesterday —
separate
until proven otherwise. We’ve no solid proof to the contrary yet. On you go, Keith.”

“Right.” Greig cast the sheet of paper aside. “Next is the street investigation in Montrose. Given where Mr Scott’s house is located, the information received has been somewhat sketchy so far.”

MacDonald raised his hand again. “I investigated a potential sighting yesterday. Have you found her?”

“Listen, the information we received was ambiguous at best. There’s not a lot to go on here.”

MacDonald crumpled his coffee cup. “Right.”

“Okay?” Raven nodded. “DS Laing, can you give us an update on the son’s ex-wife?”

Laing shrugged. “Looks like she checks out, sir. She’s been in Majorca this week and last. Won the holiday through a golf club raffle or something. Local Cumbria Police are doing secondary checks on the story but it looks sound.”

“Could she have paid for a hit?”

Laing shook his head. “No way, sir — she’s skint. She’s not paying for a killing without selling a kidney. We’re sifting through her bank statements this morning and early indications are no funny business.”

“You heard back from Mr Scott’s daughter?”

“Aye, sir. Went into a police station in Melbourne last night with her passport. She’s not involved.”

Greig looked around the room. “That’s where we’re at just now. Any questions?”

The room remained silent.

Raven glowered at Forrester. “David, do you want to give us an update on your case?”

Forrester nodded. “There were a couple of areas where we made some solid progress yesterday. First, we’ve made some inroads in interviewing the owners of black saloons spotted near Dryburgh Industrial Estate. We’ve spoken to over forty people, obtaining
alibis
in every case so far. We’ve also discovered what appears to be a first crime perpetrated by this group in August last year. A farmer out by Edzell in deepest, darkest Angus was trapped in a snare. He spotted a black car with three people inside.”

Raven sniffed. “I thought Pask told you to stop finding new cases, David.”

“It’s an unsolved, sir, so it’ll tick another crime off the list.”
Forrester
shrugged. “Anyway, it fits. The guy had a bit of ‘flame war’ in
The Courier
ten years ago with a lecturer at Abertay. She died not long after.”

“What about the other stuff, David?”

“The alibis of Sandy and Polly Muirhead collapsed.”
Forrester
licked his lips, eyes focused on Raven. “We’ve let them go and were instructed to cease all surveillance activities.
Marianne
Smith remains in custody, however.” He checked a sheet of paper, snapping it in the air. “We’ve got the forensics back from Hunter’s Farm. We’d found a hair in the particular barn in the battery hen farm where the family were trapped. Unfortunately, the DNA doesn’t match anything we’ve got on record, including Mariann
e Smith.”

“What about Polly Muirhead?”

“As we haven’t arrested her, sir, we don’t have her DNA on record.”

Raven scowled. “Anything else, David?”

“No, sir.”

Raven stared at MacDonald. “Mac, how’s your investigation into the links going?”

“Neither proved nor disproved a link, sir. Only thing linking them is the Taser. Got a call-out with a ballistics expert in Glasgow. She’ll hopefully assist in identifying whether we’re dealing with the same weapon. Should point out that in the other cases there’s no possibility of the device being used to harm the victim. Appears to be the secondary cause of death with Mr Scott, but I’ve not read the post mortem yet.”

“Cheers, Mac.” Raven folded his arms. “You should all know we’ve received a further warning from the group yesterday. DS Dodds discovered a note at the Fixit store on the Kingsway, warning of further reprisals if the birds of prey aren’t removed from display.” He sniffed. “Well, we’ve had the reprisals. Vicky?”

“I attended the crime scene at the store this morning. The manager, one Graeme Christie, was chained up in the birds display and left overnight.” She cleared her throat, conscious of how cracked her voice sounded. “His condition has stabilised and he’s been taken to Ninewells. We’re pretty much filling a ward there now.” She flashed a photocopy of the latest note across the room. “We received this — it’s another warning. ‘
You’ve got till lunchtime. You’ve seen what we can do.
’”

Raven took a deep breath. “We’ve no idea what this threat is. Were it not for a shelf stacker at Asda, we could’ve had another death on our hands with Mr Christie.”

MacDonald raised a hand. “Why didn’t we stop this? Surely we could’ve shut the stall yesterday?”

Vicky folded her arms, winked at MacDonald. “When I spoke to the CEO, he point-blank refused to. I raised the matter to DI Forrester.”

Raven nodded. “And we discussed the matter with ACC Queensberry yesterday evening. It’s part of her remit.”

“A lot seems to be getting discussed with ACC Queensberry.” Vicky rested a hand on her hip. “We should’ve got a couple of big uniforms over there yesterday to close it down.”

Raven held up a hand. “We’re not crying over spilt milk here. Our priority now is this warning. We need to do everything we can to maintain public order, including stopping this display being set up as DS Dodds mentions.”

MacDonald frowned. “And you still want us to keep the
Montrose
case separate from these?”

“I’ve been perfectly clear on that.” Raven took a step back and tapped Forrester on the arm. “David, can you bring those idiots you’ve had back in? The Muirheads and the boy in the scooter? We need to get alibis from each of them covering last night.”

“Will do.”

Vicky put a hand on her other hip. “They were released under your instructions, sir. We wouldn’t need alibis if you hadn’t cancelled the surveillance.”

Raven glared at her. “We’ve got no concrete evidence against anyone except Marianne Smith. Mucking about on message boards isn’t sufficient to charge anyone else, especially when that idiot
Fergus
Duncan is threatening us with legal action. Let’s do this by the book.”

“Mucking about on message boards was all we had on Smith until I arrested her,
sir
.”

Raven rubbed at his forehead. “Just get them in here and clear them or charge the buggers, okay?”

Vicky stared at him till he looked away. “Fine. I’ll get them brought in, sir.”

Raven cleared his throat. “Right. I want us to cast the net wide. I’ve already asked David to go to town on checking for this black car. On top of this, I want to look into anyone in the Tayside area with sympathies to animal charities or other welfare groups. Large donations, activities on marches, that sort of thing. DS Dodds, your actions list is the lightest. Can you take lead on that?”

“Will do, sir.”

“I’ve managed to secure the Met Domestic Extremism resource supporting the Wildlife Squad. DS MacDonald, can you work with them?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Thanks. Anyone got anything else before I finish up? No? Excellent. Dismissed.”

Forrester looked round at Vicky as the crowd broke up. “See what I’m dealing with here?”